6/08/2010 @ 12:40PM

Gaza: The Key To An Empty Room

In the angry, turbulent world of the Arab-Israeli conflict, crises can be catalysts for positive change, even agreements.

Don’t bet on it in Gaza. A broken and divided Palestinian national movement and an Israeli government without a strategy to deal with it all but guarantee continuing conflict. The heat generated by international pressure may compel the Israelis to ease up on their economic pressure, but Gaza will remain an Achilles’ heel in a peace process that’s been limping along for more than a decade now. Desperate Hail Mary efforts to reconcile Fatah and Hamas or produce a conflict ending Israeli-Palestinian agreement will remain just that.

Arab-Israeli breakthroughs occur when crises and opportunities produce enough pain and gain to move the locals to make decisions they might not under normal circumstances.

And so it’s been with every significant agreement in the history of the conflict. It was the trauma and pressure of the October 1973 war that led Egypt and Israel to disengage their forces and that ultimately enabled Sadat to sue for peace and Begin to return Sinai to secure it. It was the first Persian Gulf War that pushed Israel and the Arabs in response to American carrots and sticks to sit down at Madrid in October 1991; and it was the first Palestinian intifada and Israel-PLO mutual recognition that created the Oslo breakthrough.

So why couldn’t Gaza produce an opening, too? The answer lies in the prequel to the current Gaza sequelthe December 2008/January 2009 Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. An estimated 1,400 Palestinians were killed, 5,000 wounded and large areas of Gaza destroyed in Israel’s efforts to deter Hamas from using high-trajectory weapons against Israeli civilians.

The upshot? A breakthrough? On the contrary, it was two years of Israeli efforts to weaken Hamas politically, drastically limit reconstruction aid and press the Islamists to return Israel’s kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit. Meanwhile, Hamas continued to import weapons through tunnels to Egypt and to consolidate its control over Gaza in the face of Israeli and international pressure.

The Gaza crisis may yet produce a significant easing of Israel’s restrictions at the border crossings though not by sea. But the crisis is unlikely to have legs beyond thatthe long war between Israel and Hamas will continue.

The reasons lie in the dysfunction that now shapes Palestinian and Israeli political realities.

On the Palestinian side, divisions between Hamas and Fatah have produced a Palestinian Humpty-Dumpty, a national movement still lacking a cohesive strategy to achieve its aspirations. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ promise to end the Israel occupation through negotiations, while sensible, is badly fraying. Hamas’ pledge to continue the armed struggle is a disaster for Gazans and West Bankers. Indeed, the traditional African proverb “when elephants fight only the grass dies” is a fitting description of how to describe a Hamas-Fatah standoff and an Israeli-Hamas one. The real casualties are the Palestinian people.

On the Israeli side there’s no really effective strategy, either. The state’s founders have given way to a group of younger prime ministers (Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Benjamin Netanyahu) who have stumbled in war and peacemaking. The latest operation off the Gaza Coast is an example. Israel is losing the public relations war and faces serious threats in an asymmetric war with Hamas and Hezbollah that won’t be easy to manage.

So it’s likely the Israel-Hamas war will continue. The latest round may go to Hamas on points. After all, if Israel opens up Gaza, Hamas will gain credit; if Israel keeps the lid on, it will lose the PR battle, enrage Palestinians in the process and further lift Hamas’ standing.

The way out of this predicament–by Las Vegas standards, not even a bet worth making–is tough to see. The Obama administration’s approach seems to borrow a page from Hollywood. You remember the baseball movie Field of Dreams, in which Ray Kinsella (Kevin Kostner) is told to “build it” (a ballfield on his property) and “they” (the baseball greats) “will come”? In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that means the following: George Mitchell negotiates an Israeli-Palestinian deal on territory, Jerusalem, refugees and security, backed by billions of dollars from the international community, a structure of peace so compelling that Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) would then choose Abbas over Hamas in a referendum. Hamas would have no choice but to resist, thereby marginalizing itself, or to step aside, participate, or acquiesce. And everybody, including Israel, who would clearly have agreed to the peace agreement, would live happily ever after.

And if you believe in that, I can also arrange a visit by the peace process tooth fairy.

Aaron David Miller, public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, served as a Middle East negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. His new book, Can America Have another Great President? will be published by Bantam Books.